Bipartisan fuel policy recommendations for US Congress

A bipartisan group called the US Energy Security Council,
comprising former military, business and political leaders, has
issued policy recommendations for the US
Congress as it grapples with fuel-related legislative issues.
The council believes the US Congress should create a topline
fuel competition corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) credit
for automakers that opens at least half of the vehicles in
their fleet to competing fuels, and ensures automaker
compliance with CAFE counts as compliance with greenhouse gas
regulations under the Clean Air Act. For flexible-fuel vehicles
to count as fuel-competitive vehicles, the council recommends
that they should be gasoline-ethanol-methanol flexible, not just
gasoline-ethanol flexible. CAFE rulemaking
should be refocused on the original goal of energy security,
prioritizing the reduction of oils importance through a
performance-based, technology-neutral approach, the
group said. As part of this effort, the metric of
miles-per-gallon (mpg) in CAFE should be abandoned as the
principal measurement of success since energy density differs
across fuels.

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